1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus, and more particularly, to a swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus in a paper sheet accumulating apparatus, available also alone as a reject storing unit for storing a banknote identified as being defective or deformed in an ATM (Automated Teller machine) or the like, or as an organizing machine of forms or a counter of valuable instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatuses for storing banknotes in a banknote storing unit by using a vane wheel provided with swirling vanes as a banknote storing mechanism of an ATM or the like are conventionally proposed, for example, as disclosed by Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-84170 or Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. HEI09-278262.
These swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatuses guide a banknote up to stoppers while preventing the banknote from colliding with the rear of another banknote by sliding the banknote between vanes of the vane wheel.
Then, the banknote is stored in the banknote storing unit with repetitions such that each banknote, the front end of which is stopped by stoppers with a rotation of the vane wheel, is disengaged from between the vanes and drops downward onto a storing unit plate.
Incidentally, banknotes that customers deposits into an ATM or the like are not always neat in shape. Some of them are heavily wrinkled or worn out to become less stiff. Especially, in countries where people usually carry bare banknotes in a pocket or the like, a large number of heavily wrinkled banknotes or worn-out banknotes with low stiffness are distributed.
If such a heavily wrinkled banknote or a banknote with low stiffness is entered in a deposit slot of an ATM or the like as a deposit note, it is identified by an identifying unit as being defective or deformed, so that the banknote is stored in a reject box (reject storing unit) in many cases.
The reject storing unit is provided to meet various objectives, and can be arbitrarily provided. A box as the reject storing unit itself is individually independently arranged depending on an objective of provision. For example, the reject storing unit is a storing unit for storing a banknote that is badly damaged by being folded, wrinkled, torn or the like and has a problem in future use, and an old banknote that is currently discontinued.
Another storing unit is that for storing a two-thousand yen note and a five-thousand yen note, which are least reused in withdrawals among regular banknotes, when being entered by customers. If a customer needs a two-thousand yen note or a five-thousand yen note at the time of a withdrawal, a dedicated money changer is used.
Additionally, some of storing units have a storing function as a left note collecting unit. The left note collecting unit is a collecting unit for a banknote accidentally left by a customer, and is not used when a customer deposits a banknote.
If a banknote entered by a customer is that of an unacceptable denomination such as a counterfeit note, a foreign note and the like, or a banknote having a problem in future use due to a large smudge or the like despite being not counterfeit, it is returned not to the reject box but a return pending unit.
Incidentally, a swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus having a swirling vane wheel provided with swirling vanes as disclosed by Japanese Patent Publication No. 2008-84170 or Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. HEI09-278262 is provided at an entrance slot of banknotes and used as a storing unit that forms a temporary accumulation store like the above described reject storing unit.
Normally, a banknote that is entered in the swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus as the reject storing unit is held by a vane wheel by being sandwiched between preceding and succeeding vanes, and disengaged from the vane wheel at a storage position and accumulated in the storing unit.
When the swirling vane wheel is configured by arranging a plurality of vane wheels in parallel, a banknote is guided to a gap with a different phase of each of the vane wheels and curved if it is deformed or the like.
If the banknote is curved, stiffness in its proceeding direction increases. As a result, the banknote does not go along with rotations of the swirling curved vanes of the vane wheels. Therefore, the banknote is disengaged from the vane wheels before reaching the stoppers, leading to an unstable state or jamming caused by the still engaged rear end of the banknote in many cases.
Alternatively, even if the number of vane wheels is reduced to one, the stiffness of a heavily wrinkled banknote or a worn-out banknote is low. Therefore, the banknote sometimes hangs down when its front end is beaten by the vanes of the vane wheel.
If the front end of the banknote hangs down, the banknote cannot go into the gap between the vanes of the vane wheel, and gets stuck immediately below the entrance slot of the storing unit with the rear end folded subsequently to the portion that hangs down and is not held by the vane wheel, so that the banknote frequently causes jamming along with a succeeding note in the reject storing unit.
Generally, banknotes that the identifying unit identifies as being irregular are stored in the reject storing unit. However, most of the banknotes that the identifying unit identifies as being irregular tilt or go to one side.
If a banknote tilts or goes to one side, it can possibly scratch or collide with a structural element on a surface side. Therefore, it becomes necessary to widely design a wall surface of the reject storing unit, posing a problem that the entire device increases in size.
Normally, the swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus is used also alone as an organizer of forms or a counter of paper sheets in many cases in addition to an application as the reject storing unit of an ATM as described above. Forms and the like normally have low paper stiffness. Accordingly, there is a high possibility of the above described occurrence of jamming.
However, the above described Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-84170 or Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. HEI09-278262 does not disclose or suggest any preventive measures or solutions against jamming that can occur with high possibility when a damaged banknote with low stiffness is stored in the swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus as the reject storing unit, or when a form is stored in the swirling vane wheel accumulating apparatus as an organizer or a counter.